The U.S. Postal Service was in dire financial straits. The tariffs had already caused great harm to its bottom line as postal packages traffic from other countries into the U.S. had almost come to a complete halt. Businesses, large and small, that made their daily bread selling the imported trinkets that were usually shipped in those packages were also hurting. Some had already closed the doors to their companies. Some had already gone bankrupt.
The travel industry was also hurting, hurting bad. Foreign tourism to U.S. destinations had already gone from bad to worse. Some foreigners were afraid of getting detained by ICE agents because of their personal looks, so they traveled to other countries instead.
It had happened to many others, according to the news. Some had been detained for days, sometimes for weeks, even though they had valid visas to enter the U.S. Many internal travelers were also afraid of ICE and of its agents, also because of their looks, so they cancelled their travel plans to the usual destinations and stayed home instead.
Some foreigners stayed at home, too, because they were unable to get the needed tourist visas. Some were from countries torn by war or from nations that were once called “shithole countries” by the current U.S. president. Some of the foreigners that were denied entry were musical performers, artists, or other folks involved in cultural events.
The biggest blow to the travel industry, however, was about to take place. It was related to the world of international soccer and to its most important event: the World Cup. In the Spring of two thousand twenty-six, FIFA, the international soccer federation, decided to move all the 2026 World Cup games that were scheduled to be played in the U.S. to the other two hosting countries, to Canada and Mexico. It did it for different reasons, but the main one had to do with the actions taken by ICE agents against hundreds of men and women from the U.S. and Latin America during a friendly soccer match in Chicago.
Masked ICE goons raided the outside of the stadium as the pre-World Cup friendly game was being played. Because of their looks, the ICE agents believed that most those people were in the country illegally, though most were U.S. citizens or foreigners that had come to Chicago with the proper U.S. visas to see their team play.
Hundreds of innocent people that were gathered there were hauled into trucks and taken to detention centers. It took days, sometime weeks, to release those unfortunate souls from detention.
That raid was the straw that broke the camel’s back. What was before as unthinkable took place that day outside that stadium. A few days after that unlawful raid, FIFA summarily canceled the U.S. hosting participation in the 2026 World Cup. The cancellation of the games that were scheduled to be played on U.S. soil caused unimaginable business losses, to small and large entrepreneurs, to cities, to hotels, to stadiums, to restaurants, and to thousands and thousands of related tourism enterprises.
The U.S. tried to appeal the decision but to no avail. What the United States government and its ICE agents had done, according to the World Cup organizing body, was not only unacceptable, but an act of lawlessness on the part of the U.S. government that would never be forgotten. The decision was irrevocable, FIFA told the United States soccer organizers, adding that it would take decades, if not at least a century, before the U.S. would again be chosen to host a World Cup.
NOTE: Fictional story written to alert readers about the current and worsening situation in the United States of America, a nation being turned into the proverbial banana republic by the convicted felon at the helm of the government and his circle of goons.
—Pedro Chávez, columnist.